Six Nations 2012: Stuart Lancaster says England's journey to redemption has only just begun

Stuart Lancaster has every right to sport the air of a contented man. Many
expected the rookie coach who wanted to reform English rugby to receive a
bloody nose in the harsh reality of a Six Nations campaign, to discover that
winning hearts and minds is no substitute for winning matches.

Flying start: Stuart Lancaster has put a smile back on the face of English rugby

But Lancaster has scored on both fronts: not only has he brought a refreshing buoyancy to the sagging spirits of English rugby, his fledgling side sit joint top of the Six Nations table ahead of Wales' visit to Twickenham next week.

All of which should have Lancaster bouncing off the walls of England’s Pennyhill Park training base. Yet, as takes his seat opposite, punctual to the second and with his ever-present large red notebook tucked under one arm, there is not even a whiff of presumption.

Indeed, Lancaster has serious fears for his job - although not the one he was handed in the wake of Martin Johnson’s resignation in December. Rather, it is his role West Park under-11s assistant coach which is now under threat.

Since taking on the England role on Dec 8, Lancaster has spent barely 10 days at his home in Headingley, curtailing his mini-rugby duties with his 11-year-old son, Daniel, and reducing family life to a minimum.

A half-term holiday to Tenerife this week was cancelled and re-booked for Easter.

The England squad arrived back from Rome last Sunday around midday and by the time Lancaster reached home as dusk was falling he had reviewed DVDs of England’s win over Italy as well as taken in Premiership matches at Exeter and Gloucester.

By nine o’clock the next morning he was headed back down towards London and the start of the training camp build-up towards the Wales match.

“You’ve got to keep ahead of things and early morning is the best time to get peace and quiet,” said Lancaster, who routinely rises at 5am to work for two hours before breakfast.

“You’ve got to have a certain resilience to be England head coach in any sport. There are a lot of demands on you and you’ve got to have an inner strength to deal with it.

“One of the big challenges is to ensure that your family is happy with it all. You’re in your bubble with England so that takes care of itself. But you have responsibilities to your family to deal with, of course you do. You’re likely to be away 20 weeks of any given year. That’s a lot of time apart.

“That’s why it was important to get home last Sunday, even if only for a few hours, see everyone, take the kids [Daniel and 10-year-old Sophie] to school the next morning, and then leave again.

And the West Park kids? “Well, I’ll have to ask for dispensation.”

Lancaster cannot be blamed for having other matters on his mind. His application to become permanent England head coach has now been lodged and interviews will take place over the next couple of months.

You fancy that if England were to beat any of their three remaining Six Nations opponents - Wales on Saturday, France in Paris on March 11 and then a St Patrick’s Day finale against Ireland at Twickenham, then Lancaster, once the outsider, would become a prime contender.

The repair job on England’s soiled reputation has been impressive. From wallies to winners, from drunken laughing stock to sober-minded grafters, it has been a radical transformation.

Of course, it is an embryonic renaissance and while it’s all been positive so far is Lancaster prepared for...

“The inevitable?” he says, with a laugh. “Look, there might well be tough times round the corner, but as long as you’ve got confidence in what you’re doing, that’s what really matters. As far as that is concerned, I’m 100 per cent convinced that we’re on the right track.”

If Lancaster needed a moment of affirmation, it came early in the January training camp in Leeds. The players gathered on Sunday night, were taken through the vision on Monday, reviewed the troubled World Cup campaign on Tuesday and heard various motivational addresses from the likes of cricket’s Hugh Morris and former Manchester United captain Gary Neville in midweek.

They were due a session off on the Thursday, but local schools had been invited for an under-13s competition that afternoon which required eight volunteers.

“The senior players came to me on Tuesday wondering what to do as they’d already got three times that number,” said Lancaster.

“That’s when you knew you had a chance. There was no cynicism, no negativity: everyone wanted to make a difference.”

The players, of course, were all on best behaviour. Lancaster, as befits a farmer’s son from Cumbria, is not naive enough to think otherwise. Still England’s two performances have at least suggested that there is backbone there.

Lancaster reports that he has received “hundreds of letters” from fans delighted that the “connection with the team has been re-established”.

“It’s not so much what we do differently, it’s how we do it,” said Lancaster. “We try to make training as game-related as possible and make the review process a two-way thing.”

Lancaster’s approach is forensic and he somehow found time over the last fortnight to have one-to-ones with all 18 management staff, having spent nine hours in Leeds doing that with the 32 players in the squad. For a 'caretaker’, he is hands-on all right.

If the next few weeks will determine his suitability for the job, he believes that the past few weeks have already shown the future of English rugby is bright.

“I sat in front of the group on Thursday and told them that, give or take, this is the core of those who will be there at the World Cup in 2015,” said Lancaster. “They’re on a journey together and this is just the start of it.”

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